Collaborative webinar SIETAR Europa, SIETAR Deutschland, SIETAR France, SIETAR Polska, SIETAR UK, SIETAR NL
“Individualism-Collectivism (“I-C”) has been a central construct in intercultural communication and guided intercultural trainers, educators, and other practitioners since Geert Hofstede’s seminal research was first published in 1980. In 2023, The Culture Factor, the global company associated with Hofstede’s framework, updated their I-C scores due to longstanding concerns with Hofstede’s operationalization and measurement of I-C. These newer I-C scores are derived from Hofstede’s former collaborator, Michael Minkov, and they constitute a substantial departure from the past. For instance, Japan’s score has shifted very close to the US, and Northern European cultures are broadly conceived as more individualist than the US.
The aims of this online workshop will be for participants to better grasp new research on I-C, how the concept has evolved since Hofstede’s work was popularized, and critically evaluate how they, as intercultural educators and trainers, can most efficaciously integrate such concepts into their work.
To help participants make sense of abundant and often contradictory literature on I-C and more broadly on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, Prof. Adam Komisarof will begin with a synthesized overview of the new developments in understanding and measuring I-C as it pertains to Hofstede’s work.
If time permits, participants will also examine and clarify their own assumptions about I-C and to what extent these align with both Hofstede’s actual measurement of the concept, as well as those of Minkov. Ultimately, participants will be empowered to generate their own action plans for implementing their learnings from the workshop and integrate the teaching of individualism-collectivism and other cultural dimensions in their work.
Important Information
- Collaborative seminar: SIETAR Europa, SIETAR Deutschland, SIETAR France, SIETAR Polska, SIETAR UK, SIETAR NL
- Location: This is a virtual event, please register here:https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/HS4xTx6hQjeu440DDnLYMw#/registration
- Date and Time: Wednesday 10 June 2026, 12:00 CEST – 13:00 CEST
- Language: English
The Speaker
Adam Komisarof, PhD, is Professor in Keio University’s Faculty of Letters in Tokyo and has been a member of SIETAR Japan since 1999. A widely sought public lecturer, Dr. Komisarof has given over 130 invited lectures and paper presentations in 14 countries around the globe. He is the author of over 50 publications and four books about intercultural communication and acculturation, most recently The SAGE Handbook of Intercultural Communication (Sage, 2025, with Shuang Liu, Zhu Hua, and Levi Obijiofor). He has worked as a bicultural (Japanese and English) intercultural trainer since 1997, and he is the Executive Director and President Emeritus of the International Academy for Intercultural Research, an academic organization dedicated to advancing research in intercultural studies and intergroup understanding in the world.